The committee consists of a minimum of five members, one of whom is external to the Ph.D. program or to NJIT. The majority of the committee members are NJIT Graduate Faculty from the student's program or department having research experience or developing research interests related to the dissertation research. The dissertation committee chairperson typically is the doctoral candidate's dissertation advisor. This chairperson must be a tenured or tenure-track faculty member in the program. Two committee members, including an external member, may serve as co-advisors. The advisor, or at least one of the co-advisors, must be a tenured or tenure-track faculty member from the program. The other members of the dissertation committee, except for an external member from outside the university, must be members of NJIT’s Graduate Faculty. Former students of any committee member, who are less than four years beyond doctoral completion, are specifically excluded from membership. The external members should either have appropriate faculty rank elsewhere or have sufficient research expertise.